Buying a house from heirs in Crete: why the inheritance has to be accepted and registered before anyone can sell
A large share of old Cretan houses are sold by the children or grandchildren of the person on the title. Under the Greek Civil Code the heirs own nothing a buyer can rely on until a notarial acceptance is registered. The deadlines, the inheritance-tax return, the certificate rule that changed in 2023, what happens when one heir is abroad or missing, and the building file the sale itself still needs, as checked in November 2026.
Buying from heirs is safe only once the heirs own the house on the record, and in Greece that happens when each of them has accepted the inheritance by public document and registered it, not when the parent dies. Until then the person on the title is dead and the people in front of you own something the registry cannot see. The deposit belongs after the acceptances are registered, not before. As checked in November 2026 against the Civil Code articles on transcription and renunciation, the commencement and transitional articles of law 5303/2026, AADE’s inheritance-tax pages and circular, the 2026 planning code and the Hellenic Cadastre.
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. An inherited title has a history particular to one family and one plot, and only a Greek lawyer who has traced it can say whether it is ready to sell.
Buying from heirs in one minute. Under Civil Code article 1193 every acceptance of an inheritance that brings real estate to an heir is transcribed at the registry, and under article 1198 ownership does not pass without it. The acceptance must be a public document, a notarial deed, or the heir registers a certificate of inheritance instead (article 1195). Heirs have four months to renounce, one year where the deceased or the heir lived abroad; after that the inheritance is deemed accepted, but a deemed acceptance is not a registrable title. Those rules are the same for deaths before and after 16 September 2026, when law 5303/2026 took over; only the article numbers moved. The inheritance-tax return is due within 9 months, or 1 year with a link abroad. Since 28 March 2023 the sale no longer carries an inheritance-tax certificate and a later buyer is not liable for the heirs’ tax. Every heir signs the sale. The sale itself still needs the Electronic Building Identity and its completeness certificate.
Why the heirs cannot simply sign
Greek law separates inheriting from owning on the record. Article 1193 of the Civil Code requires every acceptance that brings real estate to an heir to be transcribed at the registry of the area, and article 1198 says that, without that transcription, ownership of the property does not pass. Article 1195 adds that the acceptance must appear in a public document, which in practice means a notarial deed, or that the heir may register a court-issued certificate of inheritance instead.
The renunciation rules explain why families skip the step. An heir may renounce within four months of learning of the succession, or within a year if the deceased’s last home was abroad or the heir was living abroad; once that period passes, the inheritance is deemed accepted. The substance is the same either side of the 2026 reform, but the numbers moved: for deaths from 16 September 2026 the rules are articles 1845 and 1848 of the rewritten Code, and for earlier deaths articles 1847 and 1850 of the old one, as AADE’s 2024 circular cites them. Many heirs take that to mean the house is theirs. It is, in the sense that they inherited it, but no notary can sell a deemed acceptance. A lawyer’s note published in July 2026 reported an Athens first-instance decision (569/2026) holding that an heir who had not accepted and transcribed could not be sued as the flat’s owner by the other owners in the building. The courts take the record seriously; buyers should too.
Which succession rules apply depends on the date of death. Under article 41 of law 5303/2026, the rewritten book of the Civil Code on succession governs deaths on or after 16 September 2026; earlier deaths stay under the old Code, with exceptions in the transitional article 33. The acceptance-and-registration step is needed either way: the transcription articles 1193, 1195 and 1198 sit in the property part of the Code, outside the rewritten book, and the new article 1844 still makes an heir’s automatic acquisition subject to article 1198. What the reform changed for families is in inheritance, gifts and a will.
The acceptance deed and the tax that goes with it
The heirs, or the notary for them, file an inheritance-tax return. AADE sets the deadline at nine months from a death in Greece, or a year if the death was abroad or the heirs lived abroad; for deaths from 1 January 2022 it goes through the myPROPERTY platform, and the tax is usually paid in twelve bimonthly instalments of at least €500. The notary attaches a copy of the return to the acceptance deed (law 2961/2001, article 112), and AADE lists the death certificate, the will if any and a certificate of next of kin for the return, and an ENFIA certificate for the last five years for the acceptance deed.
Two changes in 2023 matter to a buyer. Under law 5036/2023, as AADE’s circular Ε.2020/2023 explains, from 28 March 2023 no inheritance-tax certificate is attached to a sale of inherited property: the notary records the filed return in the deed instead. The same law abolished the liability of a later buyer who paid for the property for the heirs’ unpaid tax. And for tax dates up to 31 December 2008 the State’s right to assess has prescribed, which helps with the old Cretan estates where the grandfather died decades ago.
Registering it: registry or Cadastre
The acceptance is registered where the property’s record is kept: the old registry, or the Cadastre where it is in operation. Where the survey is still under way, the Hellenic Cadastre says an heir whose property was already declared files no new declaration and pays no survey fee, and after the acceptance is registered can file a free supplementary-data application with the title and the registration certificate. The registration fees are set by Cadastre decision; ask the notary for the figure in writing. How the KAEK and the posting work in Crete is in the Cadastre article.
Several heirs, absent heirs, missing heirs
A house left to three children belongs to all three in shares, and a sale of the whole needs every one of them, each with an accepted and registered share. An estate agency’s October 2026 guide notes that, under the reformed rules on dividing an estate, heirs can accept and partition in one notarial deed; article 33 applies those rules to divisions from 16 September 2026 whatever the date of death, unless a partition suit was already filed. What one holdout or an unregistered share does to a sale is in undivided shares.
An heir abroad is a delay, not a block: they sign through an attorney under a notarised power of attorney, and the deadlines run to a year. Renouncing through someone else needs a special power of attorney in notarial form (article 1846 of the rewritten Code). A missing heir is a block: no signature, no sale of the whole. And where the family cannot show how the deceased came to own the house at all, the fall-back is ownership by long possession, which has its own rules and its own article.
Then the sale itself
Once the acceptances are registered, the sale is an ordinary one, with the ordinary file. Article 368 of the 2026 planning code attaches the owner’s declaration and the engineer’s certificate to every transaction between living persons; its wording takes in a gift in contemplation of death but does not mention an acceptance of an inheritance, so a house’s legality may be tested for the first time when the heirs sell. The sale to you is such a transaction, and for a building article 348 makes the completeness certificate of the Electronic Building Identity take the place of that engineer’s certificate. Inherited village houses are exactly where the extension nobody permitted turns up. The rest of the sequence is in the buying process.
The honest downside
The work is the sellers’, and you wait for it. Several heirs in several countries means months of tax returns, powers of attorney, translations and registrations before a deed, and none of it starts until the family agrees to sell at your price. Costs are hard to pin down: the notary, the registration fee and any inheritance tax land on the heirs, who may balk at paying them before they are sure of you. A deemed acceptance looks like ownership to the people living in the house and is not. And the building file is often the last surprise: an inherited house has never had to prove its legality until the day someone buys it.
Disclosure: Honest Crete does not sell or list property. Enquiries sent from this section go to a licensed estate agent, not to us; the full statement is below. Nothing in this article names a notary, a lawyer, an engineer, an agent or any other business; publishers appear only as source labels. AADE, the Hellenic Cadastre and the courts are named as the public institutions they are.
Worth it if every heir has accepted and registered, the inheritance-tax return and five years of ENFIA certificates are in the file, and the building identity is complete: then an inherited house is as sound a purchase as any other. Skip it if you are asked for a deposit “while the family sorts the papers”, or one heir is missing, abroad and unreachable, or unwilling: that is not a sale yet, it is a family’s to-do list with your money attached.
Can heirs sell a house in Greece before accepting the inheritance?
Not in a way a buyer should accept. Under article 1193 of the Greek Civil Code an acceptance that brings real estate to an heir must be transcribed at the registry, and article 1198 says that without transcription ownership of the property does not pass. Each heir first signs a notarial acceptance, or obtains a certificate of inheritance, and registers it; only then can they sell.
Is an inheritance in Greece accepted automatically if nobody renounces?
In a sense, yes: once the renunciation period passes, the inheritance is deemed accepted, under article 1848 of the Civil Code as rewritten by law 5303/2026 for deaths from 16 September 2026, and under article 1850 of the old Code for earlier deaths. Under both, the period is four months from learning of the succession, or one year if the deceased's last home was abroad or the heir lived abroad. But a deemed acceptance is not a document, and article 1195 requires a public document for registration, so the heir still needs a notarial acceptance or a certificate of inheritance before selling.
Am I liable for the sellers' unpaid inheritance tax if I buy an inherited house?
Since law 5036/2023, in force from 28 March 2023, the liability of a later buyer who paid for the property was abolished, and the notary no longer attaches an inheritance-tax certificate to the sale; the deed records the filed inheritance-tax return instead. A buyer still wants to see that return in the file, along with the ENFIA certificate for the last five years.
What if one of the heirs lives abroad or cannot be found?
An heir abroad can sign through an attorney under a notarised power of attorney, and gets a longer deadline: one year to renounce and one year to file the inheritance-tax return. A missing heir is a different problem: the whole house cannot be sold without every co-owner's signature or a lawful representative's, so the sale waits until that heir is found or the position is resolved through the courts.
How long does it take heirs to get a Cretan house ready to sell?
There is no fixed time, and figures quoted for it are guesses. The fixed points are legal: four months or a year to renounce, nine months or a year to file the inheritance-tax return, then the notarial acceptance and its registration, then the building file for the sale. With several heirs in several countries it is usually the slowest part of buying an old house.
Does a buyer need anything extra when the seller inherited the house?
The usual purchase file, plus proof of the chain: the death certificate, the registered acceptance or certificate of inheritance for every heir, the filed inheritance-tax return and five years of ENFIA certificates. The sale itself needs the Electronic Building Identity and its completeness certificate like any other. Ask for all of it before paying a deposit.
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